Encyclopedia of Philosophy runs an article “Teleological argument for the existence of God”. States “Stated most succinctly, the argument runs: The world exhibits teleological order (design, adaptation). Therefore, it was produced by an intelligent designer”

* Note that many of the comments in the science side don’t have an ‘author’. This is because so many of these major concepts were developed over decades with tens to hundreds of scientists and researchers involved and writing supporting papers.

Like this:

25 Responses to Timeline of Creationism and Science

Without sounding narky, I do not see how you have listed more on the side of creationism. There is so much there, both in the natural philosophies e.g. biology, zoology etc and the physical, e.g. cosmology, astrophysics etc that you have missed out.

I totally agree. The problem is picking the fundamental items out of the tens of thousands of papers and the hundreds (if not thousands of books). I am requesting and soliciting suggestions. Especially anti-creationism materials and papers that fundamentally defeat the notions of ID/creationism.

That and there’s only a few ID/creationists that are worth putting up.

Why *should* it have been titled “a timeline of Creationism (including ID)…”, rather than just “a timeline of Creationism…”, David? The existing title works just fine, because ID *is* Creationism, end of discussion. “Creationism (including ID)” is just redundant.

I think the key point of David’s comment is that the title leaves out “evolutionism,” because most of the entries on the “science” side are actually about emotionally-charged responses to “creationism” that are not scientific studies. It also fails to note that Cuvier and Mendel were creationists, and Mendel’s discovery was the antithesis of what Darwin proposed. For that matter, there’s a large chunk of the history of science that took place while everyone involved still believed in creation. Many advances such as Hook’s microscope work could be put on the creationism side, or at least a HUGE “science that’s consistent with creationism or evolutionism” list in-between. Kepler, Newton, and others made it clear they were inspired and/or guided by their belief that the world around us was amenable to intellectual discovieries because it had been created, (and not the result of unguided chaotic forces such as some Greek philosophers had proposed). There was a lot of work on “natural theology” before Paley that could be included.

It leaves out the fact that Haeckel fraudulently doctored illustrations to back up his “ontology” theory, which has been disproved, although it keeps getting resurrected in various forms. It repeats the fallacy (oversimplified statement) that the Butler law “prohibits teaching of evolution.” I think it’s also a gross oversimplification to have nothing before Price’s work for decades and to give it that much credit for Morris’s work. It leaves out the work of G.W. Carver, who was inspired by his belief that the Creator designed even the lowly peanut to have its uses.

For all its faults, though, it does clearly show a couple things that are true and not so good for the proponents of the “science” of evolutionism: A lot of the work on that side has been done in response to challenges from the other, and (sadly) it hasn’t amounted to much useful or even reliable information, let alone good science. The few items of real science (published experimental work, not just speculative essays/books or philosophical “rebuttals”, etc.) listed are either neutral to creationism or even supportive. For instance, the note on Urey’s work shows that it’s been more than 5 decades since intelligent scientists have been trying to create life in the lab without borrowing from previous living things, and they still haven’t gotten close. Lenski’s work shows that even with intelligent selection of an organism’s (artificial) environment for tens of thousands of generations, the biggest result was a slight change in a digestive enzyme, making it less specific and thus trading off efficiency for generality.

Ciubist asks:
“Why *should* it have been titled “a timeline of Creationism (including ID)…”, rather than just “a timeline of Creationism…”, David?”

http://www.trueorigin.org/creatheory.asp
The evolutionist is invoking an arbitrarily modified definition of “science” to
imply that naturalistic philosophy is entitled to exclusive domination of the
‘scientific community’.

Notes based on “Men of Science — Men of God” by Henry M. Morris, 1988, 13th
printing 1997.

1473-1543 Nicholas Copernicus — wrote the first major modern proposal of the
heliocentric theory.

1561-1626 Francis Bacon sets forth the most famous proposal for a
systematic, organized approach to science in general, based on direct observation,
experiment, and judicious application of inductive logic.

1564-1642 Galileo — though often cited as an example of a free-thinking scientist
persecuted by ignorant churchmen, recent studies have shown that this is inaccurate.
Galileo promoted an idea that basically had been accepted as a theory worth consideration,
but his insistence that it be accepted immediately as a fact, combined with personal
frictions with both the Pope and leading academics, brought a relatively mild
censure upon him.

1571-1630 Johann Kepler — one of the founders of modern astronomy, along with
Galileo and Tycho Brahe (1545-1601). Kepler’s description of the laws of planetary
motion provided the foundation for the modern mathematical precision in astronomy
and played a role in many further advances in science.

1627-1691 Robert Boyle — “one of the founders of the Royal Society of London, is
generally credited with being the father of modern chemistry… he was also a humble,
witnessing Christian and a diligent student of the Bible… profoundly interested in
missions…”

1627-1705 John Ray — “has been called the father of English natural history…was
one of the founding members of the Royal Society. He was the greatest authority of
his day in both botany and zoology. Ray was also a strong Christian and
creationist…”

1631-1686 Nicolaus Steno — “also known as Nils Stennsen… with his extensive field
studies, developed the principles of stratigraphical interpretation… interpreted
the strata…in the manner of flood geologists, attributing their formation in large measure to the Great Flood.”

1639-1723 Increase Mather — although “best known as a clergyman and leading
theologian” (and with his son Cotton, often used to illustrate benighted American
puritanism), “He was also an avid avocational astronomer and promoter of science …
the primary founder of the Philosophical Society and one of the first presidents of
Harvard.”

1642-1727 Isaac Newton. His contributions to our understanding of gravity, motion,
optics and mathematics are legendary.

1646-1719 John Flamsteed — “the founder of the famous Greenwich observatory and
the first Astronomer Royal of England… He was also a faithful clergyman…”

1662-1727 Cotton Mather — “president of Harvard… and was probably the first American to
publish original contributions in science, with many publications in the _Transactions of the
Royal Society_.”

1707-1778 Carolus Linnaeus — “widely regarded as the father of biological taxonomy.
The standard classification system of plants and animals still used today is known
as the Linnaean system… One of his main goals in systematizing the tremendous varieties
of living creatures was to attempt to delineate the original Genesis ‘kinds’.” Later, evolutionists would take the variations of his “species” as evidence that “fixity of species” was false, rather than considering the probable inaccuracy of this first attempt and of variations within true “kinds.”

1738-1822 William Herschel — “has long been recognized as both an outstanding
Christian and an outstanding astronomer. In astronomy he made many great
discoveries, perhaps the most notable being the recognition of double stars and the
discovery of Uranus. … As a Christian, Sir William was…noted for his kindness
and his sublime conception of the universe as a marvelous witness to the handiwork
of God. It was Herschel who said: ‘The undevout astronomer must be mad’.”

1761-1826 Jedidiah Morse (father of the inventor of the telegraph) — “the leading
geographer of America during his lifetime. He wrote the first American textbook of
geography, almost universally used in the schools of the day and going through 25
editions, many of them after his death. He was a strong advocate of flood geology
and the literal-day Mosaic chronology of earth history.”

1769-1832 Georges Cuvier “is considered to be the founder of the science of comparative anatomy.”

1785-1873 Adam Sedgwick “one of England’s leading 19th century geologists, long-time
professor of geology at Cambridge, especially famous for identifying and naming the
major rock systems known as Cambrian and Devonian. He was also a clergyman and
Bible-believing Christian… a friend of Charles Darwin, he always opposed his
evolutionary ideas…”

1791-1867 Michael Faraday “is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest
physicists of all time… particularly in developing the new sciences of electricity
and magnetism. … Two basic units … are named in his honor.”

1792-1871 Charles Babbage “developed the first actuarial tables, invented the first
speedometer, and the first skeleton keys, as well as the first ophthalmoscope and
the first locomotive ‘cowcatcher’.” He is best known for his description of a mechanical
computation device with the main concepts (programming, data storage, input,
processing unit, output) needed for modern computers — unfortunately, it was
impractical if not impossible to construct at the time.

1793-1864 Edward Hitchcock “was one of the first American geologists of importance… During his later years he also was state geologist for Vermont… As a Christian, he was a strong creationist … He became probably the strongest opponent of Darwinism and evolutionism in America during his later years. He preached vigorously on the theme that belief in evolution led to atheism …”

1804-1892 Richard Owen “was one of he strongest scientific opponents of Darwinism”
in his day. “Although he was not a Christian in the Biblical sense, he was a strong
theist… His scientific specialties were zoology, comparative anatomy, and
paleontology. … He was also one of the first of the dinosaur hunters, having the
distinction of coining the name _dinosaur_…”

1806-1873 Matthew Maury “was, to all intents and purposes, the founder of the
modern sciences of hydrography and oceanography.” Inspired by the mention in Psalm
8:8 of “paths of the seas,” he “dedicated his life” largely to “charting the winds and currents of the Atlantic…”

1807-1873 Louis Agassiz — Morris describes him as “a great Christianpaleontologist .. recognized as the father of glacial geology and the science of glaciology. His studies of fishes, both living and fossil, were definitive, and have never been equaled.”
Furthermore, “He profoundly believed in God and His special creation of every kind
of organism…he was an inveterate opponent of evolutionism to the very end of his
life.”

1811-1870 James Simpson “is best known as the discoverer of chloroform in 1847,
helping to lay the foundation of modern anaesthesiology. He is said to have derived
the motivation for the research leading to his discovery by the record of Adam’s
‘deep sleep’ in Genesis, when Eve was formed.”

1818-1889 James Joule — “his greatest discovery…was the value of the constant known as the ‘mechanical equivalent of heat,’ … this conversion factor led to the formulation of the law of conservation of energy. … a man of sincere Christian faith.”

1820-1899 John William Dawson “was the first president of the Royal Society of Canada and also was elected president of the American Association for Advancement of Science. He was knighted in 1884. Sir William was a devout Christian and anti-evolutionist, even though he accepted the long-age concept of geology.”

1822-1884 Gregor Mendel — Mendel thought it was too early to scientifically judge
Darwin’s work, bu tthat his method of studying heredity (and the results he had
obtained) would be the beginning of putting Darwin’s ideas to the test. At any rate, he conducted his scientific work within a religious institution and “is rightly considered the father of genetics” even though those who saw his work didn’t recognize its value at the time.

1822-1895 Louis Pasteur — “one of the greatest names in the history of science and
medicine, chiefly because of his establishment of the germ theory of disease and
his conclusive demolition of the then-prevalent evolutionary concept of spontaneous
generation.” He also worked on chemistry, fermentation, and of most practical
importance, “he isolated a number of disease-producing organisms and developed
vaccines to combat them — notably the dread diseases of rabies, diphtheria,
anthrax, and others.” He also came up with “the processes of pasteurization and
sterilization.” Morris says Pasteur “undoubtedly made the greatest contribution of
any one man to the saving of human lives, and most scientists today would say he
was the greatest biologist of all time.”

1824-1907 William Thompson, Lord Kelvin “was a physical scientist of the same
stature as Newton and Faraday before him” and his greatest scientific claim to fame
was probably that he “established thermodynamics as a formal scientific discipline
and formulated its first and second laws in precise terminology…. Lord Kelvin was a strong Christian, opposing both Lyellian uniformitarianism and Darwinian evolution… he always remained a humble Christian, firmly believing the Bible and supporting its teaching in the schools of England.”

1827-1912 Joseph Lister, “whose great contribution was the development of antiseptic surgery through the use of chemical disinfectants… Of Quaker background, Lord Lister was a firm believer throughout his life. He wrote: “I am a believer in the fundamental doctrines of Christianity’.”

1831-1879 J. Clerk Maxwell “One of the greatest scientists of all time, he was also
a sincere Bible-believing Christian. … he developed a comprehensive theoretical and mathematical framework of electromagnetic field theory… Albert Einstein called Maxwell’s
achievement “the most profound and most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.”

1845-1933 A.H. Sayce “an English philologist and archeologist… When he began his
career, he was steeped in higher criticism, but the hard facts from the archeological and linguistic investigations in which he played a leading role contributed to his conversion to
Biblical Christianity.”

1849-1945 John Ambrose Fleming “could well be recognized as the father of modern
electronics, devising the first true electron tube. … He was also a founder and the first president of the Evolution Protest Movement.”

1851-1939 William Mitchell Ramsay “was among the greatest of all archeologists. A
liberal in theology as a result of his university studies, he was converted to true Biblical
Christianity as a result of his own uniquely extensive archeological discoveries in Asia Minor…”

1864 “717 scientists signed a remarkable manifesto entitled The Declaration of
Students of the Natural and Physical Sciences,’ … This declaration affirmed their
confidence in the scientific integrity of the Holy Scriptures. The list included 86
Fellows of the Royal Society.”

1864-1943 George Washington Carver is famous for having “developed over 300 products
from the peanut and over 118 from the sweet potato.” This biochemical wizard “was
also a sincere and humble Christian, never hesitating to confess his faith in the
God of the Bible and attributing all his success and ability to God.”

1875-1957 Douglas Dewar “was a founder of the Evolution Protest Movement in
London in 1932… He had been a graduate of Cambridge in Natural Science and was an
evolutionist in his early career… He had a distinguished career…as a naturalist
and ornithologist… After he became a Christian and a creationist… he wrote
numerous papers and books expounding the scientific basis of creationism. … and
participated in a number of … debates with leading British evolutionists…”

1878-1940 Paul Lemoine “was President of the Geological Society of France, Director of the Natural History Museum in Paris, and a chief editor of the _Encyclopedie Francaise_, 1937 edition” which included this comment on evolution: “The theory of evolution is impossible… a kind of dogma which the priests no longer believe…” even though “LeMoine had once been an evolutionist himself.

1882-1954 Charles Stine “was for many years Director of Research for the E.I. duPont
company. As an organic chemist with many degrees and honors, he developed many new
products and patents… Dr. Stine gave this testimony of the Creator. ‘The world about us… bears the signature of its Creator’…”

The difference was apparent, but not real, as the entry “JBS Haldane et. al reconcile the apparent contradiction between Mendel and Darwin. Foundations for population genetics established.”, said. Didn’t you read that?

You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you read Dobzhansky’s “Genetics and the Origin of Species”, or RA Fisher’s “The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection”? Or Gould & Lewontin’s Spandrels paper? Or Haldane’s papers? Or Simpson’s works? What’s so “speculative about them?”

“It leaves out the fact that Haeckel fraudulently doctored illustrations to back up his “ontology” theory, which has been disproved, although it keeps getting resurrected in various forms. ”

Not on the science side. It’s only a silly obsession with IDers.

“A lot of the work on that side has been done in response to challenges from the other, and (sadly) it hasn’t amounted to much useful or even reliable information, let alone good science.”

So the works by Dobzhansky, Fisher, Gould & Eldredge, Gould & Lewontin, Haldane and Simpson fall under this category? You must be joking.

Hi — interesting post. You could add a lot more interesting history on the evolution of creation science into ID from this article I wrote:

Matzke, N. (2009). “But Isn’t It Creationism? The beginnings of ‘intelligent design’ and Of Pandas and People in the midst of the Arkansas and Louisiana litigation.” But Is It Science?: The Philosophical Question in the Creation/Evolution Controversy, Updated Edition, Prometheus Books, edited by Robert Pennock and Michael Ruse. Prometheus Books, Amherst, New York, pp. 377-413.

…I can email you a PDF if you email me at matzkeATberkeley.edu. Cheers! Nick

David — it’s not that religious people cannot do good science; many have and continue to do so. However, there’s a huge difference between “religious” and “creationist”. Creationists, particularly young earth creationists, actively deny science in order to embrace their disproven dogma; they are antithetical to actual science.

Many of the people you cite in your post actually contributed, directly or indirectly, to the framework that proved the literal interpretation of the Genesis creation accounts (yes, accounts, as there are more than one) false. In the spirit of this post, that would put them firmly in the “science” column, not the creationist, as they did forward scientific knowledge in spite of their religious beliefs.

Your list contains a great example of how one can do good science yet hold what might be considered lunatic (and certainly unscientific!) beliefs in William Herschel. He believed every celestial body was inhabited, _including the Sun_, positing it had a hard surface and some sort of protective shell shielding its inhabitants from the exceedingly hot upper atmosphere, and yet his astronomical catalog, in modified form, is still in use today, he discovered IR radiation, and he proved coral was an animal, not a plant.

Take his discovery of IR radiation — that in turn led to the “black body radiation” equations that describe how rapidly a body radiates away heat, which in turn was used to estimate the age of the earth (which turned out to be quite a wrong estimate, as they had no knowledge that the earth was generating internal heat through radioactive decay) based on how much residual heat the planet held and calculating backwards to account for heat loss from its original formation. This estimate, even though horribly flawed in the direction of a young earth by orders of magnitude, still set a minimum age of the earth that blew the ~6000 year “literal” biblical estimate out of the water.

His discovery that coral was an animal was a small part of the study of these fascinating creatures, leading to the discovery that certain corals put down annual “growth rings” much like trees do and by taking core samples you can count these layers and see quite directly how many seasons that particular coral formation has existed. This revealed that we have corals that have been happily growing in place for much longer than 6000 years, again disproving the YEC claim.

There are thousands of examples just like these — dendrochronology, multiple forms of radio-isotope dating, alluvial silt deposits, genetic “clocks”, astronomical observations of distance coupled with the speed of light, and on, and on, and on — that unequivocally strike down the young earth claim, that establish that the earth is several orders of magnitude older than they believe. There’s a similarly large (both broad and deep) body of evidence backing our evolutionary origins and out inter-relation with the rest of life on this planet, and again, much of that evidence was contributed by religious people. You can’t argue that just because a scientist was a Christian that their work bolsters “creationist” belief, because quite the contrary is true, sorry.

It should be stressed that Cuvier discovered extinction. Up to then, it was considered obvious that God would never let one of His Creations become extinct. Few creationists deny extinction anymore!

Something else that’s very important: the discovery by Wöhler that organic chemistry isn’t magic but just chemistry – he produced oxalic acid out of “cyan” in 1824 and urea out of ammonium cyanate in 1828. Perhaps also mention that Döbereiner showed in 1822 that there aren’t separate animalic and vegetabilic acids by making one (formic acid) out of the other (tartric acid).

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Creationists, science does not automatically require that supernatural explanations be excluded from all consideration. It only requires that as few extra assumptions as possible be made. A god amounts to a lot of assumptions that are not necessary to explain anything. Sire, je n’ai pas eu besoin de cette hypothèse – “I didn’t need that hypothesis”.

I forgot to mention that you misspelled Ernst Mayr. (He’s a four-letter-word.) And while the misnamed Biological Species Concept is a contribution to terminology, it’s not one to science as far as I can see…

While it is rather interesting reading, It’s kind of like watching the US elections. lots of talk, lots of emotional involvement, and at the end of the day, people are still losing their homes, don’t have enough to eat, are suffering from natural clalmities that non believers call “Acts Of God” unless nobody gets hurt then Lucky” gets the credit.

It’s great intellectual masaturbation, but is it accomplishing anything? Or is it just distracting us from the responsibilities towards the less fortunate, those that are sick, homeless & hungry, all over the world.

Knowledge simply for the sake of knowledge is useless.
How is this knowledge being put to use to benefit manking?
Not hte bank accout of some “investor” but how does it put food on the table to atttempt to disprove creation or evolution?

John, are you talking about the knowledge of science and evolution or this particular post?

If the latter, then I would remind you that those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it. Take a look at the court cases on this list. They are exactly the same, every one. The people of ID and creationism don’t know history and can’t understand that logic actually works so they continue to make the same claims in the hopes that, someday, they will be right. They aren’t actually doing anything. But this post is a lesson for those that are curious (maybe like yourself). It shows the difference between what scientists do and what ID/creationists do. With all the links, I hope that it’s a valuable resource for the teaching of the ID/creationist movement. Any day that you learn something is not a wasted day.

If the former, then I can point to hundreds of thousands of examples of evolutionary theory and science providing direct benefits to everyone, not just the rich.

As far as your last statement ‘disprove creation of evolution’. There is no attempt to disprove either. The work is done. The judgement is in. Creationism and ID are dead. Evolution is the best explanation for the diversity of life that we have. It also works. It works in fields as diverse as agriculture and finance, process planning and production scheduling, building microscopic drugs and hypersonic aircraft. Creationism does nothing.

How can you totally discredit the idea of intelligent design? Take a look at the world around you, how did it all begin? In my opinion, the theory of evolution is a plausible explanation. However, evolution has no evidence of what began the first organism on Earth or constructed the universe, nor has their been a concrete discovery of an organism demonstrating a change in KIND. Obviously we have been created from somewhere. Sure, we have evolved and adapted to changes in our environment, but the only plausible explanation of where we originate lays in the hands of an intelligent Creator.

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